The Jester
by kayura sanada
Summary: One-Shot. It's the war, and though the pilots know one another, no one seems to understand Duo's jester act. When Duo's called upon to prove himself in a solo battle, will the guys bother to save their comrade in time? 1x2
1. The Jester

Disclaimer: I'm sure this comes as a shock to you all, but I seriously do not own Gundam Wing.

* * *

The Jester

* * *

One thing I could never explain, one thing I could never make anyone understand, was that I had no control over the Jester.

I wasn't like Quatre or Trowa – I couldn't show the real me. And I wasn't like Wufei, trapped within my anger. And I wasn't like Heero, a man who had been the Perfect Soldier for so long it seemed to have fused with him. No, I wasn't like that.

The Jester was a mask. A persona. The Jester lived on his own within me. And when I released him, he did and said as he damn well pleased. I couldn't stop him. Why do you think I got beaten up so much? I wasn't able to turn off the Jester before he did or said something that got me hit with the blunt side of a rifle.

No. I'd never been able to get anyone to understand that.

Moreover, it's difficult to explain that whenever I was around someone, the Jester came out to play. He liked being around people. He liked being rowdy and boisterous; he loved crowds.

I'm not saying I have a split personality – are you crazy? And you think they would let me near a Gundam why? But he _was_ someone else. A persona, if you would. A mask, if you wouldn't. He was the smiling face, the cocky grin and the bad attitude. He was his own, separate entity.

I was not him.

But no one could understand such a thing. No one could see how I was not him – because, of course, whenever they were near, he would come loose, plastering himself all over my face.

It wasn't like I woke up in the morning and put on my 'happy' face. It wasn't so simple. It was automatic. I couldn't emphasize that enough. It wasn't like I controlled him. I couldn't think, 'joke now' or 'grin'. He took care of all of that. I'd created him, yes, back when I was child and desperate. But he'd gotten away from me, creating himself in whatever way he'd seen fit.

No one even let me get to that part of the explanation.

I woke up as I always did nowadays – immediately, one second asleep and the next wide awake. There was no moment of blinking, yawning, or stretching. There was no time to ruminate on dreams.

It was six in the morning, right on the dot. It had taken rigorous training for me to make my mind record how much time I could sleep and to wake me up at exactly the right moment. Waking up when I heard a threatening noise, however, was automatic.

But I'd told myself to wake up at seven. This was a time when I heard a noise, a strange noise. I continued lying down as if I were sleeping, listening intently. The door opened. A silent sound, and footsteps padded into the room.

I relaxed.

"Welcome back," I murmured lowly, certain my roommate would hear. He was even better than me, a soldier to the core. Heero could put me to shame in everything.

He merely grunted. He didn't like me, and he made it plain. I understood why. As a soldier, it was inconceivable that I laugh and joke and... be someone like the Jester. The real me, the true me, hurt for it. I couldn't help the mask – just as Heero couldn't. But Heero's was more acceptable – the Perfect Soldier.

I sat up, watching him carefully. He was walking fine. He dumped his duffel bag by his bed and sat down, looking out into nothing for a short second before turning and glaring at me. I understood the mask, the cold hatred of its eyes. Mine were opposite – warm, jovial. But they were both – both his and mine – fake.

"How you doin'?" I asked, already knowing the answer I would receive.

"It's none of your business."

I didn't sigh. I couldn't. The Jester was in play. I've learned to hate him. "Well, pal, if you're gonna croak, then-"

Heero whipped his pistol out – an automatic thing for him, a defensive maneuver. "Then what?" he demanded, his voice ice-cold, low. Threatening.

I put my hands up and laughed. "A bit trigger-happy, huh there?"

I saw his eyes glint for a second and wondered if he'd finally lose that damnable cool and shoot my sorry ass. I wondered if the Jester would die before I did.

"Answer the question."

I did sigh this time, but in exasperation. "I was gonna say, 'if you're gonna croak, then it'll be your business that becomes mine.'"

He humphed and flipped his gun back, slipping it into whatever mysterious place he manages to hide it with those spandex shorts and tank top. I always figured he stuffed it... well. Somewhere on that hot body that was totally inappropriate to think about. "That won't happen," he grunted. It took me a second to realize he was still on the Jester's conversation. I didn't blush, but it was a close one.

I shrugged. "If you say so." I yawned and stretched, letting my stiff muscles get a little movement in them. I was deadly aware of every movement Heero made.

It had been a disturbing development, the interest in my roommate's body. On the streets, it didn't matter if someone was interested in guys or girls. There was no time for sex when every moment depended on watchful eyes. Besides... I'd just been a kid.

I'd thought Solo was the most gorgeous creature in the world. I'd had hero worship beyond what a child on the streets should have been able to feel. Solo, I think, saw it, it and my interest in him, though I'd been far too young for it to be anything more than platonic. He seemed to watch me carefully, but he kept me close. And one night, when three kids had been watching out for enemies, he'd seen me watching him and gave me a mouthful.

It had been scary, horrifying, but it had been Solo. I'd thought it was a rite. The next night, I'd been named his second-in-command. It was only years later that I understood that it had been no rite, and he'd been watching me for more reasons than I'd thought.

But even those memories couldn't keep my interest for Heero Yuy at bay.

Heero took off his tanktop, granting me a view of his naked chest, a sight that never failed to entrance me. He was all muscle and lean frames, ribs visible in their six-pack glory. I knew underneath those calloused hands was pure steel, that those biceps and triceps could lift me with little effort. The man could bend _steel_, after all. Little ol' Duo Maxwell would be nothing compared to that.

I closed my eyes to it and just let my ears listen to the rustle of fabric. I heard him lay down on the bed without pulling the covers over him, just as I slept. And I heard him fall deeply asleep in the next second.

I always envied him that. I could fall asleep quickly, as well, but I could never just shut off like he could. It annoyed me that he surpassed me in even that.

I stood, carefully making some noise – he would wake up otherwise. I went through my morning routine, getting dressed and making myself presentable. My hair always took the longest, but I didn't worry over it too much. Just the quickest brush-through possible and then the automatic motions of putting it into a braid. These days it took me about fifteen minutes. G had made me do it in five.

Then I did my stretches. And then I went on my run.

It was a free moment, a split second of freedom – only fifteen minutes to go almost five miles, about 2.4 to the park and straight back. I never spoke to anyone. Runners never had to.

And then I was back – it was seven o'clock to the minute. I had worked off my libido and had sweated out the worst of the memories. I saw Wufei on the back porch, his usual place from five until eight. He would be finishing his – what was it? Kata? - and would soon begin his meditation. I left him alone.

But when I entered the house, I heard Trowa and Quatre conversing lowly in the kitchen. I was hungry, but I wasn't going to disturb them. The two of them seemed to have some sort of history. In any case, they were obviously building a relationship. It wasn't my business to interfere.

I went back up the stairs and passed my – Heero's and my – room. I didn't want to disturb him. Heero would usually check his laptop for God only knew what before crashing. He was exhausted. Injuries, after all, didn't have to be physical to be debilitating. I went to the library and scoured the shelves for books.

Most in this safehouse were self-help books – books I wouldn't touch if my life depended on it. There were a few thrillers scattered inside it all, and those were what I'd sniffed out the first week. There wasn't much left.

I searched every single shelf I could see, even grabbed a chair and stood on it, and picked up the few books I hadn't yet read. I was searching through the stack when I heard steps coming toward me.

The Jester escaped.

I turned with a grin to see Quatre entering the room. I knew he felt something strange from me. He'd admitted it once – a feeling of exuberance smothered by a calculating mind and a throbbing heart. I'd just grinned at him and told him I was an onion. He hadn't caught the centuries-old reference.

"Duo." He smiled at me. I always loved Quatre's smile – there was something so honest and open in it. I had to return it to him, at least a little. But it wasn't me grinning.

"Hey there, Qat. How's everything going? You and Trowa having any fun yet?"

Dammit, it was none of my fucking business.

Quatre flushed a deep red. "Wh-What?"

The Jester shrugged and cocked his head, putting down his stack of books on the table. He broke eyesight with Quatre. The Jester couldn't look people in the eye, afraid they would see something he didn't want them to know. "Just wonderin', since the two of you look so cozy-close."

_Just shut up!_ I screamed at myself, hating the loss of control. I felt like one might if they'd been taken over by a Yeerk – able to think, able to watch, but never able to participate. (1) I felt like I was being swallowed by my own mask. I watched as Quatre blushed deeper and looked to the floor.

Thankfully the Jester took pity on the poor blond and spoke again, this time with a more sincere tone. "Honestly, Qat, I don't care. I'm into guys, myself. More muscle to 'em."

If I could have, I would have shot myself dead right there.

Quatre looked up at me and caught my eye. The Jester let our eyes match together for a short time, showing his sincerity, before he widened his grin and looked around. "Hey, do you know any of these? I don't know which to read next."

Quatre cleared his throat and allowed the Jester to change the subject. He looked over them. "I recognize the name Grisham. He's good." His eyes flickered to me. "Uh, Duo, I came up to tell you that breakfast was ready."

I nodded. Quatre was compassionate – he would never shout up the stairs if he knew someone in the house was trying to sleep. "All right, perfect. I was getting hungry. So what'd you cook today?" Quatre was, after all, the Head Cook of the house. He was so domesticated it made me cringe. I couldn't cook and worse, I'd needed to learn from him how to clean. Yeah – that had been a humiliating experience. Everyone had teased me mercilessly about it for days. But how was I supposed to have learned? I'd never needed to clean the reeking holes we rats had hidden in.

Quatre shook his head. "Trowa cooked," he murmured. "I just gave him instructions."

Ah. Was that what they'd been talking about, or had that been only half of their conversation? I begged the Jester not to ask, but he'd already decided not to. Bubbly people who loved hanging around others never would have heard voices and not joined whoever was there. It would hurt his image. I mentally sighed in relief.

"Trowa, huh? " I gleefully rubbed my hands together. "Great. I'll be the infamous taste-tester and let you know if he passed."

"Why thank you, Duo," Trowa said drolly. I turned to the entrance of the library and cocked an eyebrow. He was leaning on the doorjam with a smirk on his lips. I grinned back at him.

"Is something burning downstairs?" I tsked. "You make my pancakes black, and you fail on general principle."

He chuckled and stood straight. "You mean like how _you_ failed?"

I laughed and flipped him the bird. "Keep it up and I'll help you."

He held up his hands. "I give," he murmured. "Now hurry up. If you're testing my food, you're going to eat it while it's warm."

"Aye-aye!" I saluted. Trowa turned and headed downstairs, Quatre following him nervously. I wondered if he thought the Jester would be prick enough to ask Trowa the same questions he'd asked Quatre. But the Jester was more... open... around Quatre. Trusted him more. What he'd said to Quatre, he would never say to Trowa or Heero or Wufei. Those three... there was no getting close to them.

I followed the two of them at a small distance and watched their movements. I didn't think they noticed, but the two moved in a sort of synchronization. I could remember watching the two of them in a mission a few days ago. They'd moved as if they'd been training together for years. I'd been the outsider, the monkey in a troupe of dancers. They'd been fantastic. Yes. They were working on a very special relationship. I thought about it and felt a bastard mix of happiness and burning envy. The Jester pushed it away – there was no room on the mask for anything but smiles.

We sat down and ate quietly, Wufei already eating. He gave me a burning glare and promptly ignored me. I in turn exclaimed over the food, giving Trowa an A++++. That brought Wufei out of his introspection.

"Maxwell," he said coldly, "there is no such grade."

"Sure there is," I said jovially. "An A is, what, a 90 or something?" I'd never gone to a conventional school, so I couldn't be precisely sure. "An A+ is a 100, so Trowa got a 130." I nodded. "See? Perfect mathematical sense."

Wufei sighed as if having suffered my attitude for years. "Maxwell, you cannot get more than all of the questions correct."

"Bonus points!" I exclaimed, waving my fork at him. "He gets bonus points."

"For what?" Wufei pressed.

I cut off another piece and smothered it in syrup. "The cinnamon," I said randomly. I caught Wufei's surprise an instant before I felt an odd silence in the air. Ah. I'd shown a piece of intelligence.

The Jester backtracked. "It is cinnamon, right?" I turned to Trowa's shocked green eye and looked into it. "Cinnamon? Or butterscotch?" I chewed thoughtfully. "And that other taste that's like sugar."

Wufei sighed, and I turned back to him. I didn't like that speculative look in Trowa's emerald eye. I had to start evading more around Trowa. I could forget sometimes, when in a group, just how carefully Trowa watched. "Maxwell, you are hopeless."

I laughed. "Aw, you're just saying that."

Wufei shook his head. "Not hardly."

I took the hit with a chuckle, but the Jester wasn't able to respond. He couldn't push me back completely, so he silenced himself a bit, only making moaning noises of ecstasy whenever he took a bite.

It wasn't like he and I were separate people. He was still me, even though he was his own entity. He was still linked to me. And when I hurt, his ability to mask me waned. I felt the pain snatch me up and pushed him out, desperate.

"Trowa, this is _delicious_. How come you needed to take lessons from Qat?"

I saw the two of them freeze for a second, but this time I couldn't ask him to stop. I had to trust him to meet his own limits and not exceed them. The Jester let it drop. "Hey, Qat, could you teach me?"

Qat smiled at me, but Wufei stopped him before he could speak.

"Absolutely not." His gruff words escaped in a huff. "The last thing we need is Maxwell wasting more of our rations."

Quatre turned an upset gaze to him. "Wufei..."

But the Jester laughed, blowing it off. He waved his hand wildly. Movement. It became more pronounced the more I needed to hide. "Ha! You're just saying that because you fear me."

"If by 'you' you mean 'your cooking'." Wufei used a knife and fork to cut his pancakes, same as Quatre. I vaguely envied them the ability to do that so... eloquently.

"Same thing," I joked. "Hey, maybe that should be a new bomb or something. 'The Maxwell Cooking Bomb'!" I laughed at the idea. "Boom! And they all flee in horror." I wiggled my fingers and spread my hands out in front of me to indicate scurrying.

Wufei sighed and rolled his eyes.

"That is the most ridiculous bullshit I've ever heard. Grow up. As you are right now, you're useless as a soldier."

Heero.

My breath caught and my eyes widened a bit. I turned to him and saw him picking up a plate, left out specifically for him, and seat himself by Trowa. Quatre watched him with a frown.

I laughed, rubbed the back of my head. "Guess so," I said. I felt something inside of me slip off-course.

I felt a pain in my eyes, in my chest. I knew I had to escape. The Jester went into full evasion mode.

I stretched and yawned, careful not to squeeze my eyes shut too tightly. I picked up my dish – thank God, thank God the Jester had been using it as a prop, so that only a couple of bites remained. I knew Trowa was watching, was deciphering something, but just then I couldn't make myself care.

I know I said something – something witty and stupid, because Wufei snapped at me irritably. I laughed at his remark, whatever it had been, and I leisurely left the room, waving cheerily behind me.

I didn't go to my room. It was Heero's, too – it wasn't a sanctuary.

The only place I could escape to was the shower, and so I did. If anyone asked later, I'd say I'd stunk after my run.

I turned on the water – scalding hot – and leaned against the wall. I let the water wash over my face and let the shower cry out my tears as I battled the real ones back.

It was stupid to get emotional over it all. By creating the Jester, I'd made myself the butt of jokes, the useless, stupid, pathetic little teenager. I'd created that image, and it served me well. Hell, my own teammates, the people who went into battle with me, thought I couldn't be a soldier. If that was the case, then didn't that mean that I'd done a good job? Nobody would suspect someone like me.

I laughed, but this laugh was mine. Empty. Humorless. I heard it ring hollowly over the shower stall and let the sound echo inside of me. I had accepted, long ago, that I was alone. When Solo had left me, when Sister Helen and Father Maxwell had left me, I'd looked around me and seen the irrevocable truth: I was alone. And I would always be alone.

But, I'd thought, I would make sure no one else ever felt the burden of having no one standing beside them.

I'd trained for years on that philosophy, accepting my aloneness with a passion fueled by pain. I'd piloted Deathscythe on the belief that I would fight alone and die alone, just as I lived. But then I saw Heero standing there, saw him try to destroy the Gundams and found out just _who_ he was. And then I'd found the others.

Stupidly, a part of me had thought I was no longer alone.

I leaned against that bathroom wall and realized I'd been as stupid as the Jester.

I turned the water off and stretched again. I breathed deeply, testing myself, but there were no tears and I was safe. I ringed out my hair – still in its braid, hellfire. Now I had to brush it again.

I heard a knock on the door and tensed. The Jester came over me, taking over, and made my lips move. "Yeah?"

"You have a mission."

Heero. A message must have been sent to my laptop.

Of course I had a laptop. All of us did. We just weren't psychotic about using it all the time like Heero.

"Cool!" I piped up. I wondered who I was going with, whether they would rely on me whatsoever with Heero's words still trapped in their minds. I shrugged. The Jester didn't care.

Heero's footsteps receded. I wondered if he would bother to get any more sleep and let the worry slip away. I wasn't his mother.

I toweled myself off and wrapped the towel around my waist. It took five steps for me to reach the door to our room and enter. Heero was on his laptop, typing furiously. I saw his eyes flicker to me for a short second before he determinedly pushed my existence out of his mind. I let it go without protest.

I dropped the towel to the floor in a fit of fuck-all and stretched once more. I got dressed in record speed and flipped open my laptop, the only thing sitting outside my little duffel bag. There it was, a pretty little pop-up informing me that I had a message. I opened it and typed in my password.

Wait.

A solo mission?

I read it over and had to keep myself from gasping in shock. The hell? I had to stop a major export of alloy alone? There would be a critical amount of defenses. I wondered at it until the very end, where G had left me a pretty little private bit.

_P.S. - Say your good-byes._

I laughed. I laughed loud and hard and I didn't give a damn what Heero thought of it. Say my good-byes? Classic. Absolutely classic. So no one wanted to work with me anymore.

Because that's what that little code meant. G thought I was useful. He never would have trained me otherwise. But apparently he'd found out about my 'partners'' opinions of me, because he'd sent this little peach.

It was fly or die. Prove or lose. Either I would survive and prove my worth, or... or, well, I would die in a ball of flames and they would laugh over my useless corpse before moving on without me.

I grinned. With how I was feeling today, I would probably blow. But hell if my corpse would be considered useless.

I closed my laptop and turned to my duffel bag. Heero's eyes were on his laptop, but he was typing a bit slower. Concentrating on me now, wanting to find out why I'd laughed so randomly.

I unzipped my duffel bag, unable to lose the mad grin. "Thanks for the let-know, Hee-chan."

He growled, fingers still not going any faster on those keys. I knew he was still listening.

I stuffed in my laptop and zipped it back up, then stood and hefted the bag onto my shoulder. "You know, it's not healthy to stare at a computer screen all day. You should get out more." (2)

Heero didn't even bother commenting this time.

I paused for a moment. I really did like Heero, despite everything. His power and body weren't all; he seemed to have a... a deeper part of himself hidden in there, a part so rarely seen it was as precious as a pearl. I hesitated – my parting words, if I gave him any, would be from _me_, not the Jester. I worded it carefully. "Welp, I gotta get goin'. It's been fun, as always." I gave him a two-fingered salute and turned away from him, toward the door. "'Bye."

I left, wondering how long it would take for Heero to realize that that had been the first time I'd ever said good-bye.

I sent a similar good-bye to everyone else, waving and smiling hugely. Yep, dumb ol' Duo Maxwell was heading out for possibly his last hurrah. Nothing big.

Trowa's eyes narrowed when I said good-bye to him.

* * *

I didn't give them time to figure it out and follow me; instead I threw myself into my Deathscythe and took off, keeping myself as hidden as possible before lifting off into space.

It was a long wait before I would reach the station. I had time to think about how I could die. Had time to think about where my life was heading, what I wanted it to head toward.

Did I want to live? I had to admit that I didn't want to live any longer than the war. I wasn't so foolish as to believe that my hands weren't stained with the same blasphemous dirt and blood as those who took away the light from those I'd loved. I knew I was as much a heartless bastard as they. I knew I deserved death.

Still, still, I didn't want to die.

No. There were _other_ things I wanted. I wanted to see Quatre and Trowa together, hands linked. I wanted to fight with Wufei some more. I wanted to see Heero's body. Taste it. More, I wanted to melt that cruel, dead gaze and warm it up.

Foolish, of course. My light was fake, as fake as my smile. Relena, I thought with a pang, was the perfect one for him. It made me laugh, as humorlessly as in the shower. Relena, who I didn't even like, was the perfect match for someone who I very much _did_ like.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. I had five more hours before I had to be aware of my surroundings. I focused on falling asleep. My last images were a bastard mix of pictures – Heero, his chest bare. Quatre's blushing face, Trowa's narrowed eyes. Wufei's glare. Myself, grinning stupidly as others slung stones at me – and Heero, staring blankly up to the sky, pleading with eyes as empty as the moon.

* * *

I was awake thirty-five minutes before the first convoy appeared.

I shifted Deathscythe out of its Stealth Mode just in time to destroy two suits. I saw the other suits turn to me, reacting. I threw myself at them, already knowing it didn't matter if they sent in a red-alert. The enemies would already know that two suits and just slipped off their radar.

I destroyed those two, as well, then decided it didn't matter and destroyed the alloy. Just in case I didn't succeed.

It took only a few minutes for more to show – what had started out as a routine run had turned south. I grinned my psychotic grin and took a chance to jack up my music to full volume.

What people didn't understand – other than the truth about the Jester – was that Shinigami _was_ the Jester. They were one and the same. The Jester thought of life as a game. Shinigami thought of _its_ life as a game. That's how he got the job done – if he lived, he won. If he died, he lost. Game over.

I wasn't a dancer in battle. That was reserved for Wufei. I wasn't smooth like Quatre or acrobatic like Trowa. And I certainly didn't have Heero's style for the outrageous. No, I was just power and stealth, the ultimate thief, quick and deadly. I went for one-hit kills and didn't care how I got them. I flitted into the battle and jumped out when necessary. Guerrilla warfare at its best.

But that wouldn't work this time. Not with twenty suits already surrounding me, not with fifteen more on their way. I laughed and screamed and shouted my lyrics as loud as I could. "Die, motherfucker, die!" (3) My hands moved like lightning, like mercury, and pain sang through my muscles as I pushed them to go even faster. I took my first hit, a beam straight to my cockpit from the back left of my suit. I shot forward in my seat on a choked cry. My harness bit into my chest, my shoulder. I punched my controls from memory and swiped that sucker through.

I took another hit, then another. I felt blood in my mouth and grinned at its taste. I recognized it from my memories. I'd tasted it many times before. I let the taste spur me on, let my hands move to strike again and again.

Then I felt another hit in an increasing list of hits and heard Deathscythe's mechanics whir. I felt something shift in the Gundam and felt my left side stop dead. Leg, arm. I cursed.

Of course it took all of ten seconds for them all to notice. I still had the bigger bulk of my enemies surrounding me. I saw them converge and grimaced. I would take out as many as possible. I didn't want to admit defeat. Not yet.

I thought of Heero and screamed a war cry. Not yet! Not yet – I didn't even know how I felt about him yet!

I couldn't die yet!

I swung my scythe again and again, shooting my engines to maximum for my turns. I took too many hits too quickly. I felt a leg be blown away and cursed. I had to take the second to slash it with my scythe. The Foundation couldn't get it. I wouldn't let them.

The harness bit into me yet again, but this time I only felt the force of the blast and not the hit itself. Which meant wherever I'd been hit, it was more than the hydraulics that weren't responding.

"Dammit!" I shouted, letting my music wash over me. I took out another suit – another – and got slammed by another hit. I choked this time on the harness as a piece of it broke. I was shoved in my suit as I was hit again. I tried to get my scythe to move and heard the hydraulics put up a fit.

"C'mon, baby," I cajoled. "C'mon. Not yet." It worked, but it was slow. The enemy managed to dodge.

I took another hit, breaking the last strip of my harness, and felt it slap me as it flew free. The lights in the cockpit flashed on and off for a few seconds. I heard the air compression give for a moment before stabilizing. My scythe was shot from my Deathscythe's hand.

Fuck. I was out of time.

I took one last look around. I'd gotten a good bit of them. There were about twenty left – I did a quick count – seventeen. How many had I destroyed? Twenty? Twenty-five? I laughed. Pitiful. If I'd had one more person with me, even just as a decoy, I could have taken them all out.

I only had one last weapon left.

I flipped open the safety for the keypad and punched in my password. The little hatch opened, showing me that little red button. I closed my eyes and lifted my hand.

_Heero_. What was it about him that made him so necessary to me? _Heero._ I'm sorry I couldn't make you smile.

"Shinigami has a little present for you, motherfuckers!" I screamed. I let my fist crash down-

"DUO!"

My eyes snapped open and I froze in shock. I felt my fist stop right above the button and caught my breath.

My music blared around me, loud enough to deafen everything. But I heard his voice, clear as a bell, in my mind.

And in my failing monitors, I saw the enemy suits turning. Away from me.

I snapped on my communications unit and slammed my music off. "What the fuck are you doing here, Yuy?!" I demanded. For once, I was able to speak without my Jester.

"You bastard!" I heard a voice rage, and my eyes widened. Wufei?

"Duo!" a fearful voice shouted over the comm.

"Hold on, Duo!" I heard Trowa urge.

I couldn't breathe. What... what were they all doing here? What did they want? How had they known? How had they found me? What...

"Duo, don't you dare hit that button!" I heard Heero shout, and I thought I heard emotion in that voice of his. I felt my fist tremble. I hadn't turned on the vid link.

"I..."

Then their suits were shooting past me, engaging an enemy that suddenly seemed more interested in retreating. I struggled to get my body under control, but the Jester was conspicuously absent. My fist just didn't want to move. I grabbed it with my other hand and forced it around the controls. I tried to make my machine move and heard it complain loudly in protest. I heard something break and clenched my eyes shut, but no fluid flooded the cockpit and I was eternally thankful.

"Don't move, Duo!" both Heero and Quatre ordered, and I couldn't help but obey. I watched as they covered for me, taking down the retreating enemies one by one. My screen fuzzed as Heero picked off the last desperate fleer.

The cockpit went dark.

"Fuck!" I shouted, searching by memory for back-up lights. They didn't turn on. I heard the air vents go silent.

I laughed. No way. I'd been miraculously saved, only to die, anyway. No fucking way.

"Duo?" Quatre questioned.

"Maxwell! Get your head on straight! We need to start heading back-"

"Go," I murmured, swallowing my mad chortles. "Get going."

"Maxwell," Wufei started, but it was _he _who spoke.

"Duo." I let my eyes close, let his voice wash over me. For whatever reason, he'd come for me. It was the most wonderful gift he could have possibly given me. "Your mission is over. You can return."

I shook my head, even knowing he couldn't see it. I didn't bother to open my eyes. "No," I whispered. "Not this time."

"Duo." Quatre's voice was agonized.

"Duo, we don't want you to leave." Trowa's voice was calm. "We don't want you to say good-bye to us again."

I grinned and felt the bastard burn of tears. "Sorry, man," I murmured lowly. "I have to."

"Why?" Quatre demanded. "Why are you going to leave us?"

I cocked my head. "What? Did you guys think I would go somewhere else if I'd survived?"

I heard a low curse. "So you knew," Heero accused.

"Of course." I grinned. "I knew there wasn't much hope."

"Then why?" Quatre demanded.

I smiled for him, a soft smile that I knew he couldn't see. "Because it was a mission." I shrugged. "And because I knew it was needed."

"Needed?" Wufei echoed.

I wondered at it. At why, suddenly, they were listening to me. And why, for the first time since before I could remember, I was able to speak to someone without the Jester veiling my every thought. Was it because I couldn't see them? Or was it because the Jester knew it didn't matter, that it was too late? "This mission was a mission of proof. A mission to show my worth." I chuckled humorlessly. "Guess I failed the test again, huh?"

"Duo-"

"Duo, dammit-"

"Enough!" Heero shouted harshly. It was the first time I'd ever heard Heero raise his voice. My eyes opened in shock. I flinched at the cool blackness that surrounded me. "Enough. We're going back to the safehouse and hashing this out there."

"Sorry," I murmured. "I can't. It's either now or never."

"Duo?" Quatre's voice came in timidly. Shaking. "Are you... are you hurt?"

I thought about the pain in my shoulder and chest and back, the blood on my lips and the small piece of shrapnel my stomach had willingly caught in its grasp and laughed aloud. "Oh, Quatre. It's not that simple." I thought it over. "I have about an hour, I would say."

"An hour?" he whispered, horrorstruck.

"What do you mean?" Heero demanded. His voice was clipped and cool, and for once I was happy for it. He was centered, at least. He would need to be – they would all need to be – to help Quatre through this.

"I thought you could see inside?" I asked him, feeling a maniacal smile tugging at my lips.

"You cut me-" His words stopped short. I could hear him suck in a sharp breath. "Your internal systems-" he snapped.

"That's right," I chortled gleefully, "they're all dead!"

There was silence on the line before Wufei spoke. "Then how are you communicating with us?"

I shrugged. I'd already wondered the same thing. "Maybe that's still up?" I mused. "I dunno. But the air's done. I'm getting' nothing new here."

There was a sharp hiss.

Heero spoke then, his voice even lower than before. "Remember, Chang?" he murmured. "We all set our communications onto our Xerok system. It works as long as its battery is intact."

"Can that battery be-" Wufei started, but there was a sharp "no" from Heero and Wufei went silent.

I heard the sound of muffled sobs.

"Hey, hey!" I murmured, grinning from ear to ear. I felt something inside me clench. "You just gave me a great going-away present, after all. What more could I ask for?"

_Yes,_ I pleaded. _Jester – please save me._

Those sobs only got louder.

"Maxwell," Wufei breathed, and I thought I could hear a choked sound in his voice.

I think that's when it hit me – the fact that they'd come out here despite the fact that the mission had been sent to me and me alone, the fact that they were all crowded around me as if in a mourning procession, unable to leave me behind and have me die alone. I felt that pain in my chest change until it was grabbing my heart and lungs. The pain in my eyes became too unbearable. I couldn't take it.

"Scratch that," I told them, and my throat was so tight I wondered if they could even hear, "you're giving it to me right now – the best present I could ask for." I laughed. "I don't have to die alone now."

There was silence, but it was filled with their tension and pain and somehow that made it okay. I felt them around me, floating there beside me. I felt it. I clutched my chest and gasped at the feel of it. The tears fell, hot, salty tears that drained themselves from my very soul. "I'm not alone anymore..."

"Maxwell," Wufei repeated, and I could hear the tears in his voice, too.

"Duo, you can't," Quatre sobbed. Trowa murmured something, but I didn't think it was directed to me and I let it slip past.

Heero was silent.

"Hey, Heero," I called out, and let myself grin once more. "You know... I've always..."

"No," he snapped. His voice was still cold, but there was a frigid sort of panic in it. Panic and determination. "I won't let you die."

I laughed. "Too late, Perfect Soldier. You can't save 'em all."

"No," he agreed harshly, "But I _will_ save _you_."

"Heero," I argued, but he cut me off before I could begin to argue.

"I put on my suit on the way out here," he snapped. "I can go to you."

"Are you crazy?!" I demanded, jerking up. I felt that painful hole in my chest spasm in panic. "You'll just be killing yourself, too!"

"Fool," he muttered, and I heard him begin unstrapping himself.

"Heero, you can't!" I shouted. I leaned forward in my seat on instinct and felt the hatch for my magic button against my pinky. I narrowed my eyes. "If you open your hatch, I swear I'll self-destruct!"

I heard a pause in his movements, a precious halt. I felt my breath rushing in and out of my chest. It was loud.

"Duo." Heero's tenor voice was low and – oh my God – seductive. "Damn you. I will not let you die. Do you hear me? I won't lose you!"

I felt a part of me shift. "Well I'm not losing you!" I shouted. "It's over for me! I knew that as soon as I took this mission-"

"You stupid fuck!" Wufei snapped, and I shut up at the words, stunned. "We never wanted you to die!"

The words shocked out a laugh from me. "What?" I asked. "What's this bullshit? You thought I was a worthless piece of-"

"We didn't think you could be a soldier!" Wufei shouted. "We thought you were too much a civilian – we didn't want you getting involved in these fights! All of us... we..." His breath was loud, too. "Damn you, Maxwell, we thought you couldn't be a soldier, but..."

I felt the laughter in me and let it bubble up. I leaned my head back and just let it explode from my lips, let it shake me in its humorless mirth. "I am the war!" I yelled right back. "My entire life is battle! From the first moment I can remember – I've always been fighting." I felt the Jester's suicidal grin and let it play with my face however it wanted to. "Always."

They were silent then, silent as they thought about my words – really _thought_ about me – for the very first time. I wondered just how much longer I had. The air was getting a little thin. Maybe I should stop yelling.

"Duo," Quatre murmured. "The real you – that's the calculating mind and overwhelming sorrow... isn't it?"

I shrugged. "Guess it doesn't matter any more for you to know," I said, as close to an admittance as I could get.

"Damn you," Heero murmured. I wondered why he was suddenly cursing so much.

Wufei seemed to be choking on something rather unpleasant; I could hear strange noises coming from his side of the comm. link.

"Duo, that..." Quatre seemed to be having trouble forming the words he needed; it was a new concept. Quatre always knew what to say.

"Duo, who are you, really?" Trowa asked, calm as ever.

I chuckled. "Oh, Trowa! I knew you knew. I could feel it. How much?" I asked, honestly curious.

I heard a noise then, a noise that pulled me back. A hatch being opened. "Heero!" I screamed.

"Are you really going to kill me?" he asked, almost parroting my words in the dungeon that day as he aimed at my head. I cursed. I could tell from the sound that his voice came to me through a suit's speakers.

"Damn you, Yuy!" I screamed, and I felt the Jester grab me and push me back. I watched as he – as _I_ - hit the buttons to open the hatch. My eyes widened in shock.

"Duo!" Quatre screamed.

It took the others merely a split second longer to understand what I was doing. They screamed, as well. I wondered where the sudden give-a-damn was coming from.

Shinigami – the Jester – smiled. "Just give it up," he advised. "Some things can't be changed."

"Duo!" Heero cried, and I heard the Perfect Soldier... melt away. Disappear. Vaporize. He was just Heero Yuy then, and I saw clearly why I'd fallen in love with him.

Fallen... in love?

I felt my chest burn with the need to breathe. I gulped in a breath – and the Jester started laughing uncontrollably.

"What...?" Wufei snapped.

"Rich," I murmured, "just rich! Yuy," I called out, as if he couldn't hear me clearly through the speakers. "Hey, man, did you know I love you?"

I laughed riotously and opened the hatch up completely.

"Maxwell!" Wufei shouted.

"No!"

"DUO!" Heero yelled.

I smiled and closed my eyes. I felt my skin react to the vacuum, felt hot fire and splintering cold, felt my body start... bubbling, like I was boiling water.

Everything was so very dark...

* * *

I... woke up.

I opened my eyes and woke up.

I couldn't explain the feelings along my body – pain, pain everywhere, and an odd itchy feeling I couldn't get rid of. I felt smothered and trapped. Disoriented. I started struggling.

"Calm down, Duo," someone to my left said tiredly.

I froze.

"...Heero?" I whispered.

I heard him move suddenly. He came into my range of vision. "You're awake," he said gruffly. I wondered how many times I'd fought blindly while... asleep.

"What happened?" I whispered. My tongue felt odd, big and swollen. My gums, too. Lips. Entire body. I wondered if corpses felt like this.

"I saved you," he said simply.

Just those three words made me stop for a moment. Heero? Save? Me? "Why?" I murmured. There was an odd silence then. I could only digest the news – Heero had somehow miraculously saved me, had somehow charged through and grabbed me and... what? "How?"

"I grabbed you and took you to Wing."

I thought about that. "It would take too long," I accused. My throat hurt. I tried to work it and winced.

Heero left my field of vision then, only to return momentarily with a bulb of water in his hands. I wondered why it was a bulb until I realized that my lips and fingers were so swollen and numb that I would never be able to manage anything else. Heero had to hold it as it was. I blushed.

"I threw you," he admitted.

I thought about that. I couldn't remember – I remembered getting beaten in Deathscythe, remembered them all coming to save me, remembered... remembered the startling blackness all around me where there should have been _light_. Then things got fuzzy. "Why?" I repeated.

Heero carefully withdrew the bulb from my lips and sat it back down. Then he turned back to me. I saw those cobalt eyes and smiled. I was sure I looked stupid – I could feel my hair, loose for once, all around me. Felt the covers over my body. Both were irritations to my skin, but I felt too cold to complain. I knew I was swollen all over. It was a miracle I was alive.

Still, his eyes were serious and determined as they gazed down on me. "Because I love you, too," he whispered.

My mind was as numb as my body when he leaned down and kissed me. He raised up and quirked a sardonic, triumphant, I-am-the-best smirk at me. I felt a frisson of annoyance flicker my brain to life.

"Rest," he ordered, and left my sight. I heard the click of the door and scowled.

"Bastard," I mumbled, and closed my eyes. I would ignore his orders based on general principle.

Oh, but I felt great. Not physically – oh no, that hurt like a bitch – but still I felt better than I ever had before in my life. I grinned.

Had I heard that right? That despite everything, these men who I thought couldn't stand me wanted me near? From that, we would work something out... right?

And Heero... Heero Yuy, the Perfect Soldier, wanted me near him – me, the Jester, Shinigami, and maybe even some of my baggage. The man I cared for so much... despite everything, he wanted me near him...?

He wanted me...

I fell asleep with a true grin playing on my lips. The Jester was nowhere to be found.

* * *

(1) Yeerks are from Animorphs – a truly awesome saga that I'd been engrossed in as a kid. A Yeerk took over a person's mind and controlled their body, leaving their victim helpless in their own skin.

(2) It may not be healthy, but that doesn't seem to be stopping _me_ any.

(3) An actual song by Dope. Guess what its name was?

A/N: Yeah, it went fast at the end, but what to do? I wanted it to be _short_, dammit, and it was turning into a mini-story. I had to cut the sucker off. Bite me.


	2. The Dragon

Disclaimer: Guess who doesn't own Gundam Wing? Me? NO-oohh...

Note:This probably shouldn't be read immediately after The Jester. This recounts the story, but through the eyes of another. Though there are several new pieces, some echo the previous 'chapter,' containing the same quotes and sometimes actions. You've been warned. ^_^

For Silver Cateyes.

* * *

The Dragon

* * *

Maxwell was the most irritating, annoying, foolhardy, irksome little imp I had ever met in my entire life.

He had, for instance, this ingratiating habit of laughing after he spoke. And more than that, he was so bloody hyper and cheerful... didn't the man even _realize_ we were in a war?

Not to say I didn't like him or anything. He was a fine enough warrior, a good enough man. It was just that insufferable happiness that hit my last nerve, that ridiculous absurdity of his... it could drive a man up the wall.

Trowa and Quatre had just finished making breakfast when I finished my meditation. I seated myself in the corner and thanked them for the meal. Quatre was too weak for a Gundam pilot, too kind to take the deaths of others upon his shoulders. Trowa, however, was someone I could understand. A man brought up in the war, changed and altered by it irrevocably.

Quatre left the room, and Trowa shortly followed after. It was odd to see a strange sort of kinship growing between the two. I ignored it. It was not my business.

The companionable quiet was interrupted by Maxwell's entrance. He sat down on the opposite end of me, leaving his back open to the door behind him. There were only four seats, and three were taken, so it was where he was stuck if he wanted to sit. Still, I couldn't help but think he was being reckless. The foolish fun-lover would get himself killed. The thought angered me.

"Wow!" Maxwell exclaimed, chewing his first bite of the pancakes, which Quatre had helpfully sat down before him. "Trowa, this is awesome! You definitely passed. As your official taste-tester, I give you an A++++."

What was this man even doing on a battlefield? The place didn't suit him at all. "Maxwell," I snapped, "there is no such grade."

"Sure there is," the fool replied. "An A is, what? A 90 or something? An A+ is a hundred, so Trowa got a 130." I audibly heard my teeth click together. "See? Perfect mathematical sense."

The man was far too easy-going. I couldn't imagine someone like him able to dirty his hands on the battlefield anymore than I could see Winner out there. Certainly their skill was recognizable, but their attitudes... I sighed in irritation. Maybe this man was simply incorrigible and there was nothing else to be said for it. "Maxwell, you cannot get more than all of the questions correct."

Maxwell seemed completely unperturbed by this bit of information. "Bonus points!" the man exclaimed, waving his fork at me. I wondered idly if he'd ever poked someone's eyes before, doing that. "He gets bonus points."

The concept was so completely absurd I almost laughed. "For what?"

Maxwell returned to eating, seemingly unconcerned with the conversation in particular and life in general. "The cinnamon."

I thought I might have felt my jaw drop.

"It _is_ cinnamon, right?" Maxwell asked then, turning to Trowa. I took the chance to clear my face of my shock and carefully took another bite of food. With Maxwell around, one could count on not getting a peaceful meal. "Cinnamon? Or butterscotch?" I scowled; who the hell would put butterscotch in their pancakes? "And that other taste that's like sugar."

Correction: that _was_ sugar. The man could make a monk run screaming. "Maxwell, you are hopeless."

He laughed at me, a rich sound. "Aw, you're just saying that."

I thought about my own desire at the moment to run screaming from the room. And then maybe smack my own head in with something very, very hard. "Not hardly."

Maxwell merely laughed at that, too, and began making oddly sexual noises after eating each individual piece of his breakfast. I cringed a bit at each noise – was he _trying_ to make me embarrassed?

"Trowa," he finally continued, "this is delicious! How come you needed to take lessons from Qat?"

I couldn't believe the man's obliviousness. Was he truly blind to the fact that Winner and Barton were attempting a relationship? I was once again reminded of Maxwell's innocence. I bit down another sigh. He really shouldn't be on a battlefield. He reminded me too much of...

"Hey, Qat, could you teach me?"

"Absolutely not," I huffed, recalling the last disastrous morning Maxwell had attempted to cook. I had been afraid Romefeller may finally find us, what with the copious amounts of smoke and, eventually, a fire that had taken all of us – Winner, Maxwell, and myself – to finally put out. And afterwards I'd feared Romefeller wouldn't _have_ to find us, because Maxwell wanted us to taste it all and see how it had come out. As if anything charcoal black could possibly be edible. "The last thing we need is Maxwell wasting more of our rations."

Winner gave me a reproachful frown. I must have sounded too harsh. "Wufei," he warned.

But Maxwell just blew it off, as usual. "Ha!" He waved his hand as if shooing off a fly. "You only say that because you fear me."

I thought about the taste of his cooking, so black as to be unidentifiable, and the feeling of my stomach lining melting. "If by 'you' you mean 'your cooking'." I took another bite to wash away the shadow-taste of charcoal.

"Same thing," he said. "Hey, maybe that should be a new bomb or something. 'The Maxwell Cooking Bomb'!" I blinked in vague confusion as Maxwell laughed. "Boom! And they all flee in horror." Maxwell did a strange scurrying movement with his hands. I was hard pressed not to laugh at the ridiculous image of Oz and Romefeller soldiers screaming and fleeing a battlefield as some fell to the power of Maxwell's horrendous cooking. I don't even know what I did to hide my sudden lapse in decorum. All I knew was that Yuy had just entered the room.

"That is the most ridiculous bullshit I've ever heard. Grow up. As you are right now, you're useless as a soldier."

I snapped my eyes up in shock, suddenly furious. I glared at Yuy as Maxwell turned to him. Even I could see the flash of hurt in those eyes of his. Yuy was turned away from it, though, picking up the plate Winner had left for him. He sat next to Barton – good. He, at least, would have enough control not to engage in a petty battle with him. I didn't know if I had such composure.

Certainly I agreed; Maxwell should never enter a battlefield. With his easy personality, he was like Winner in my mind, too kind and idealistic to enter a place of bloodshed. Still, I couldn't believe the cruel audacity of Yuy. The idea that he would say such a thing to Maxwell... I clenched my teeth tightly together and took another bite of food.

Maxwell laughed shortly. I didn't believe he'd recovered, but his desire to keep a light atmosphere had him saying, "guess so." I looked at him, but he was yawning, hardly covering his mouth. I cocked an eyebrow. See? Not the type to be a soldier.

Maxwell picked up his plate and grinned at us all. "Trowa, that was delicious! I think I have syrup all over me..."

I snorted. It was true that he'd been shoveling in his food as if it was going to be his last meal. "Don't drip all over the house," I advised. He only laughed.

When he left the room, I turned to Yuy. "Try not to be a bastard next time," I told the man.

"I only spoke the truth," he said, not even bothering to look at me. Yuy's coldness was normal and, at most times, decipherable. Still, I could not overlook the cruel way he'd spoken the truth, or the look of pain on Maxwell's face. Someone like Maxwell shouldn't look like that.

"True or not," I stated, grating my knife a bit too hard through the pancakes, causing an annoying screech, "it was unnecessary and crude."

"It was bullshit," Barton said succinctly. I looked at him in surprise. Barton was usually very calm, and he cursed no more than Winner. Maxwell, really, was the curser of our group. Whenever we were out on the battlefield, the only thing that could drown out his obnoxious shouting was his equally obnoxious rock music.

Yuy didn't respond to Barton at all.

"Whether you like it or not, he is a part of our team. And whether you think he is reliable or not, he is still one of our members. If you alienate one tree, the rest will eventually fall."

Yuy kept eating as calmly as ever. "Perhaps," he murmured, swallowing, "but it you cut off a dying limb, the rest will be saved."

I scowled at him. "Maxwell, for all his obstinacies, has been an asset."

Yuy 'hn'-ed at that.

Barton and Winner both stood with their plates at the same time. "Maybe," Winner said quietly, "you don't really understand the importance of the limb until you cut it off?"

Yuy's movements froze for a millisecond. I took that as my cue to leave, as well. "Certainly Maxwell wouldn't be able to speak eloquently on the subject," I said, "but that does not mean he would not understand it."

He just closed his eyes.

Winner and Barton began a low discussion in a corner of the room. I thought for a moment that it was another private moment, but their faces were battle-ready. A mission? I left, not wanting to interrupt.

Inside the living room, I could hear the start of the shower. Maxwell had retreated to the bathroom, then, while the rest of us argued over him. I couldn't fully understand the man. I didn't know much of his past, just that he'd been a thief, one who had met his respective doctor by gaining illegal access to his ship. It was a ridiculous idea, but Maxwell had proven his skills by stealing my duffel bag while I'd been meditating. It had been a wholly humiliating experience.

So the man had skill. I would never question such a thing. One could see the evidence of it every time he entered the battlefield; for all his ridiculousness, he was a good fighter. But that did not make him a true soldier. No; that was something else entirely.

I stood there, dumbly considering Maxwell's abilities on the battlefield. Heero Yuy walked past me at one point, not acknowledging my existence in the room. I let him go. He wasn't my concern.

Maxwell had a sort of aura about him, one that drew others to him instinctively. I couldn't explain the phenomena, simply because it didn't make any sense. A soldier, a warrior, should not have such a kind personality. It would lead to his death.

But I couldn't let myself think of such a thing. It was odd, but I didn't like the idea of Maxwell going into battle without someone there to protect him. But that idea, too, would lead to death. And trying to protect another in the sort of situations we found ourselves in would most certainly lead to death. And not just Maxwell's.

I heard the shower turn off and knew Maxwell would be returning to his room. Behind me, the kitchen door opened and closed. Someone turned on the dishwasher. And I continued standing like a fool in the middle of the living room, staring blankly at the paisley walls.

Then the calm sounds of household chores was interrupted by the raucous, almost wild laughter that flew down the stairs.

Maxwell?

I turned to it. Something was off; it was not one of his normal laughs. Something was wrong. I took a step forward before I managed to stop myself. Maxwell was perfectly fine; all five of us were here, and one of us was outside. There was no danger. Still, I got the sense that something was very, very wrong.

One of the pictures on the wall was of a cottage hidden in the woods, surrounded on all sides by beautiful wildflowers in a crazy splay across the painting, trapped only by the frame. I walked over to it, trying to let my worries slide away. There was nothing to fear. Nothing to worry about. I was overreacting, fearing something that couldn't happen.

Maxwell... Maxwell should have never been introduced to the battlefield.

"Hey, 'Fei."

I hated that nickname.

Maxwell stood by the entrance to the living room, right by the lobby leading outside. His duffel bag was slung over his shoulder.

The feeling of trepidation stole over my limbs once more.

"Maxwell?" I turned away from the painting, away from the lonely cottage standing stark against that dark oak frame. "You have a mission?"

"Yup!" he chirped cheerily. Something was off again; Maxwell, though excitable, was never so crazily happy when going off on a mission. "I'm headin' out." He pointed behind him to the door. "Wanted to say a quick 'bye before I hopped on outta here."

His speech patterns weren't quite right, either. I leaned against the wall and stared at him, trying to see what he was hiding. "How long will it take?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Eh, not too long. Should be pretty quick, actually."

A couple days? Then why didn't he just say so? "So you'll be back soon?" I pressed.

He just shrugged his shoulders. "Probably."

I sighed. The mission had to be an absolute secret; I wouldn't pry any further. I understood the need for such secrets.

But why, _why_ did something about this scenario seem so off?

Duo slid past me, going out to talk to whoever was in the kitchen. It was Winner; they spoke for a short time, then Duo asked where Barton was. When Winner told him Barton was out scouting the area, Duo thanked him ad left.

I vaguely touched my forehead, eyes wide. I was scared. Scared for Duo Maxwell – something wasn't _right_.

Five minutes later – to the second – I heard the sound of an engine revving from far away, heard trees bend and wind howl. Maxwell was leaving. I moved to the window, somehow desperate to see. His face was set in stone as he pulled out of the lot, driving down the empty street and disappearing around the turn. His face was so serious... something was wrong. Very wrong. But what? It was just another mission. We were soldiers. We got them all the time. There was nothing to be afraid of. The man would be off killing a few people – welcome to war – and would return with most likely nothing more than a good bruise or two. Maybe even a cut. He was weak-hearted, but he had good physical strength. If he didn't, he wouldn't be a Gundam pilot.

I pushed off off the windowsill and turned away. He would be fine. It was because of what had happened this morning in the kitchen – his exuberance and energy. Yuy's words – that damnable flash of pain in those blue-violet eyes. That small flash of vulnerability unnerved me. That was all.

Barton stormed into the house then. I heard him grab Winner's arm, heard the blond's surprised yelp as he was dragged. Barton's eyes met mine as soon as he entered the living room. "We have a serious problem," he said grimly.

"Trowa, what's wrong?" Winner asked, beating me to the punch.

I felt my chest tighten. "It's Maxwell, isn't it?" I asked him. My fists clenched. Dammit. I'd been right. Something _was_ wrong. Very wrong.

"He said good-bye," Trowa gritted out.

I was about to snarl at the man, to demand he explain his ridiculous piece of information, when it just _clicked_. I heard Winner's horrified gasp as he, too, understood.

"What does it mean?" I snapped, staring at Barton as if doing so alone could force out the answers. It was true. Maxwell had never spoken that word before. Not once. He would always shout 'see ya' or ''til next time' or 'I'll tell you when I get back.' Something innocuous, something that hinted at a return. That something in my chest turned into large, painful spikes.

"I don't know," Barton told me. "But we need to see that mission statement."

Winner shook his head. "It won't be that easy," he whispered. "If Duo doesn't want us to see, he'll have taken his laptop."

And, racing up the steps, we all as one pounded into Yuy's room. He looked up from his laptop and scowled at us all. I ignored him and went straight to Maxwell's desk. "It isn't here." I wasn't surprised; of course it wouldn't be.

Maxwell. What the _hell_ was he thinking?

"What are you doing in here?" Heero demanded.

"Heero." Trowa turned to him. "What did Duo say to you? Tell me exactly."

Heero glared at him. "Why?"

I wanted to punch the man, but Barton managed to continue his calm. "He said good-bye to you, too, didn't he?"

Yuy's hard eyes wavered. For an instant I could see fear in those eyes, breaking through his icy glare like it was nothing more than glass. A mask. I looked on grimly. His cruelty was just a mask? Then the fear I saw was what was real. His hands froze on his keyboard. "Yes," he answered dully. "He told me to get away from my computer every once in a while. Said he had to leave and that it had been fun. Then he said good-bye."

Yuy stood in a quick surge, looking a bit dizzy. "You mean he has a suicide mission?"

Barton nodded. "I believe so."

"Why?" Yuy demanded, as if we knew the answer.

"It doesn't matter why," Winner said firmly. "What matters is that we bring him back safe."

None of us argued.

"But how?" I moved forward. "Yuy. We need to find Maxwell. Can you hack into the doctors' sent e-mail?"

Heero frowned. We all knew Maxwell was the best hacker, for reasons one hundred percent foreign to us. But Yuy was the second-best, and only by a slim margin. "I'll do it."

Not a yes or no, not a maybe. He was as desperate as I was.

But when I saw him sit and practically attack his keyboard, I realized I was wrong on that. He was _more _desperate than me.

It took him over fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes during which Barton and Winner and I grabbed our weapons and prepared for our departure. After that, we all stood like fools, watching Yuy type without pause. His eyes flashed once, his teeth bared, but he barreled through until finally he sighed and said, "here." His eyes flashed down the screen, reading at lightning speed. Then he stood again. "No."

His voice was practically nonexistent. Barton pushed him away from the screen and read aloud. "On the fifth of the month at fourteen-hundred hours, a shipment of-" His breath hissed in "-twenty kilos of alloy will be carried from Colony C28 to Colony E9. Destroy the alloy and its defenses. Are you kidding me?" he interrupted himself, hearing the ludicrousness of the demand. "P.S.," he continued, and here he froze for a moment, seeming unable to continue. "P.S.," he began again, his voice much quieter now, "Say your good-byes."

"Oh, no," Winner moaned.

Yuy was moving, grabbing his own weapons. "Let's go," he said shortly.

I nodded. "Right. We're not letting this happen."

Winner reached out for Barton's hand. Barton gripped it without looking, staring at the message, calculating, just as I was. "He would meet them an hour afterwards, I would guess," he murmured.

"A bit past halfway," I agreed, "to catch them right when they're starting to think they might make it through."

"With less chance for their back-up," Yuy muttered.

We all ran out of the house, not bothering to walk. We ran like demons to our Gundams. We knew we were racing against time. What were the chances that we would make it in time? Almost a half an hour had already passed. Maxwell would already be en route in space. We had yet to get through our system checks, a minute-long wait. When we finally pulled off from the ground, my hands were shaking almost too badly for me to hold onto my controls.

A suicide mission? No way in hell. Maxwell would _not_ die. I wouldn't – couldn't – let it happen.

* * *

It was an agonizing wait.

Every moment, I wondered how Maxwell was faring. Along in his Gundam, expecting death. Why? Why had he been sent into such a situation? The airwaves between our Gundams were silent, each of us drowning in our own fear. Maxwell _couldn't_ die. He was the mirth of our group. Foolish, immature, but always there for a laugh. I enjoyed fighting with him, despite the constant aggravation. He was like a long-lost brother. A friend good enough that I could punch in the face and remain best friends with.

I _couldn't_ let him die.

"He should arrive soon," Quatre murmured over the comm. His voice was so sudden, so loud within the dark silence, that I jumped.

Yes. Maxwell would be arriving on the battlefield. Would he fight with everything he was, or would he give in? No, Maxwell wouldn't give up. He wasn't the type to do such a thing. He was stubborn. He would fight.

Still, a lot could happen in a half an hour.

"He'll live," Yuy stated strongly. As if saying it could make it so. I had a brand new view of Yuy now, after having seen that fear flicker in his eyes. It was as if his mask had been stripped away completely in that one instant, giving me the chance to see, to understand, more than I ever had before.

Yuy, in his own way, was just as afraid for Maxwell as I was. In his own way, he was trying to protect Maxwell from the battlefield. He, too, didn't think someone like Maxwell should be a pilot, risking his life when he laughed and smiled so much. The idea of seeing Maxwell tainted was almost sickening. Yuy agreed.

I always had to wonder exactly how people like Winner and Maxwell had gotten into Gundams to begin with. Sure he'd managed to steal onboard a doctor's ship, an amazing feat, but how did that equate to becoming a pilot? And Winner, with his soft heart, was equally unworthy of the name soldier. Both were excellent fighters, but their dreams would forever be stained. It wasn't a world for people like them.

No. Only those scarred, like me, so be weighted down with such a burden.

* * *

We arrived in hell.

We were close enough to pull up visuals. I could hear when everyone else did; they all gave the same sounds of horror when they saw what I did.

Maxwell was toast. His suit was in absolute shambles. One leg was gone completely. I didn't see it floating around anywhere, so Maxwell must have had it destroyed before we'd arrived. His suit was hardly moving, trapped in a state of limbo. As I watched, his scythe, moving so slowly the hydraulics must have been almost completely broken, was shot away from him. I pushed Nataku as hard as I could.

The enemies converged on Maxwell as I watched, helpless, not quite in range yet-

"DUO!"

Yuy screamed out across all channels as he launched forward, completely neglecting everything. I switched on my own comm. link and got ready to speak, as well. Maxwell's music could be heard, a loud, irritating blast of some man screaming about getting down with sicknesses. Then, blessedly, the enemy suits began to turn to us, seeing us as the threat that we were.

Maxwell's music turned off. I greeted the silence with pleasure. It was proof that he was alive enough to turn it off. "What the fuck are you doing here, Yuy?!" I heard Maxwell snap, and could have whooped with glee. He sounded healthy, or at least healthy enough to scream at us.

"You bastard!" I called out as greeting. Now that I knew he was all right, I was going to kill him.

I turned on the vid link, hoping to get a view of him, but his was still off. I scowled at it, but it didn't matter much. I was in range. I pulled my scythe forward and charged straight through an enemy stupid enough to charge at me.

"Duo!" I heard Winner call out, his voice sounding much more concerned than either mine or Yuy's. Rely on Winner to allow his emotions to run free, even in a battle situation. Still, it was good to hear someone send out the message we were all feeling.

"Hold on, Duo!" Barton urged. Apparently we all needed to reassure Maxwell of our existence here.

I cut through another opponent, letting my fury fuel my swings. I wouldn't let Maxwell get hit one more time. Beside me, Winner cut down his own foe.

"Duo, don't you dare hit that button!"

I turned my gaze to the vid screen, horrified. The self-detonation switch? But there was still no sign of Duo over the screen; he still hadn't turned the thing on. What made Yuy think Maxwell had been about to press the self-detonation switch?

"I..."

And yet there was guilt in that voice of his. I gritted my teeth.

Finally we were there, passing Duo's ruined Deathscythe, chasing after the suits smart enough to know we were too strong. Those who had charged at us were already gone; these were more interested in getting away. I wouldn't let any of them escape. For what they'd done to Maxwell, they would all die.

I heard a groan from the comm. link and knew Maxwell was trying to help. A sickening crack sounded.

"Don't move, Duo!" Yuy and Winner shouted in unison, fear in both voices. Silence returned. I felt fear clench my chest again – had something happened to Maxwell in there?

And as if in answer to my silent question, Maxwell suddenly screamed, "fuck!"

It was too simple then to smash through the last of the runaways, to destroy each suit before they could leave. Yuy took the last two, seeming to be in an even bigger hurry than me. I turned back to the Deathscythe, floating pathetically in place, unable to move.

"Duo?" Winner called.

Maxwell was laughing. Laughing? The idiot! "Maxwell, get your head on straight!" I ordered. My fingers were locked around the controls. It didn't seem like they would be moving any time soon. "We need to start heading back-"

"Go," Maxwell murmured softly, choking back his out-of-place mirth. "Get going."

That didn't sound good.

"Maxwell..." But what could I say? What the hell did he mean, 'get going'?

"Duo." Yuy's voice came strong and sure over the speakers, as if his speaking alone would make mountains fall. "Your mission is over. You can return."

But I knew, knew before Maxwell spoke, that he wasn't telling us to leave simply because of that. "No," the man whispered, and I felt my heartbeat like a gun firing in my chest. "Not this time."

Not this time. Because something had changed. The something that had made Maxwell laugh like that, just as he had in the safehouse, getting the message that said his life was forfeit.

"Duo..." Winner's voice sounded as agonized and horrified as I felt.

"Duo, we don't want you to leave." Barton spoke calmly, as if we were all witting down at the table continuing to eat his pancakes. "We don't want you to say good-bye to us again."

Why were my hands trembling?

"Sorry, man," I heard Maxwell say, and I felt the trembling increase, verified by the words. "I have to."

_He can't die._ That's all I heard in my head, over and over again, like some hideous broken record. I couldn't speak.

"Why?" Winner demanded for me. But he was demanding something else. "Why are you going to leave us?"

Leave? There was no leaving. Maxwell had no intention of moving from this spot.

"What? Did you guys think I would go somewhere else if I'd survived?"

I shivered.

"Fuck," Heero said, so low it was difficult to make out. "So you knew."

"Of course." Maxwell said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. _Say your good-byes._ The the message itself was so strange, but it was definitely understandable. Perhaps Yuy was trapped where Winner seemed to be, unable to believe that this was the inevitable conclusion. "I knew there wasn't much hope," Maxwell continued.

Inevitable? Why did _this_ have to be inevitable?

"Then why?" Quatre asked. His voice held all the hurt I could never release.

When Maxwell spoke again, his voice was smoother, calmer. As if his being calm could somehow make Winner calm, too. "Because it was a mission," he explained. "And because I knew it was needed."

"Needed?" I repeated dully. I tried to process that word.

"This mission was a mission of proof," he said after a moment. "A mission to prove my worth." He laughed a bit at that.

I felt sick.

"Guess I failed the test again, huh?"

Failed? Again?! The stupid bastard! "Duo, dammit!" I snapped.

"Enough!" Yuy roared. I'd never heard Yuy so enraged before. Usually his emotions were in constant check. "Enough. We're going back to the safehouse and hashing this out there."

"Sorry," Maxwell murmured, and I flinched, knowing now for sure that there was no chance to return to the way we'd all been. "I can't. It's either now or never."

I could tell that the others only figured it out then; there was an ominous silence that seemed far too foreboding to me. I clenched my eyes at it, wishing I could block it out. "Duo?" Winner called out, his voice tentative and unsure. "Are you... are you hurt?"

The silence then was even longer, and much, much worse.

"Oh, Quatre," Duo sighed, "it's not quite that simple." A short pause, then, "I have about an hour, I would say."

I flinched in my cockpit.

"An hour?" Winner breathed, voice infused with horror.

"What do you mean?" Yuy demanded. I clung to his calm sureness. At least one of us was managing to stay calm, to act as they needed to get the job done. I, on the other hand, was trapped imagining listening to Maxwell fade right in front of me. Imagined the laughter dying. One of my hands slid off the controls to clap over my mouth. I felt sick.

Then Maxwell made it even worse for me when he said, "I thought you could see inside?" Still trying to keep the mood light. It hurt to hear.

"You cut me-" Yuy started, then stopped immediately. He'd forced open Maxwell's vid screen? It sounded like bullshit. It sounded like something Yuy _would_ do. But if Yuy could no longer see inside Maxwell's cockpit... "Your internal system's-" Yuy snapped, everything clicking into place just as it did for me.

"That's right!" Maxwell chuckled merrily, and my stomach just dropped, "they're all dead!"

I digested this for a moment. Maxwell would slowly suffocate to death, the inside of his cockpit completely dead. Something slid into my mind, a desperate grasp at hope. "Then how are you communicating with us?"

I could almost _hear_ Maxwell shrugging. "Maybe that's still up?" he asked rhetorically. "But the air's done. I'm gettin' nothing new here."

I hissed. So I was right – Duo's time was up. The fingers still pressed against my lips trembled.

So was this it? Was it all over? Had our efforts been too little, too late? If we'd just been faster... if _I'd_ been faster, able to decipher just what it was that had been bothering me... no. Dammit, Maxwell couldn't die! I wouldn't let him!

Yuy spoke then, just as my resolve firmed. "Remember, Chang? We all set our communications onto our Xerok system. It works as long as its battery is intact."

I pounced on that. "Can that battery be-"

"No," Yuy stated firmly, shooting down the idea before it could fully form. I felt my newly-won resolve falter. Worse, Winner's soft crying could be heard over the speakers. It made this seem far too real.

"Hey, hey," Maxwell called, obviously speaking to Winner, his voice almost happy, "You just gave me a great going-away present, after all. What more could I ask for?"

_Kill me._ His kindness made our failure even more palpable, the taste of it like acid on my tongue. Winner heard the inevitability of it in Maxwell's voice, in our continued silence. His sobs got louder. I felt my own eyes tear up in response. Ridiculous... men didn't cry. It was weak. "Maxwell," I called, trying to speak. But my throat closed up. I hunched into my hand, seriously afraid now that my stomach would flip.

"Scratch that." I heard tears even in Maxwell's voice, and I felt a bit better, knowing I wasn't the only one struggling against them. "You're giving it to me right now – the best present I could ask for." He laughed, a hauntingly empty sound. "I don't have to die alone now."

The pain was disturbing, almost like I was losing Meiran again. Someone close to me... because I hadn't been strong enough to protect them...

"I'm not alone anymore."

I was horrified to feel a tear fall. "Maxwell." Was I so weak that I would have to suffer the torment of watching someone important to me die right in front of my eyes _again_?

"Duo, you _can't_," Winner sobbed.

"Quatre," Barton whispered, offering what solace he could. "I'm here."

It felt like we were already mourning the dead.

"Hey, Heero," Maxwell called out, thankfully ruining the depressing mood for at least another short second, "you know... I've always..."

I flinched. Oh, God. A bedside confession.

"No," Yuy snapped harshly. I heard, behind the anger, a desperate fear in Yuy's voice that seemed even stronger, even more demanding than my own. "I won't let you die."

Yuy's voice was full of pure panic. I remembered the appearance of breaking glass in the safehouse and thought that Heero's mask couldn't withstand the horror of losing Maxwell.

But Maxwell just laughed at Yuy's words. "Too late, Perfect Soldier. You can't save 'em all."

"No," Yuy agreed harshly, "But I _will_ save _you_."

I wiped my eyes and glared through my monitors. Yuy was right – we _couldn't_ give up yet.

"Heero," Maxwell started, but Yuy cut him right off.

"I put on my suit on the way out here. I can go to you."

When was that? He must have had one stashed somewhere in his cockpit. I tsked. We all should get into such a habit.

"Are you crazy?!" Maxwell demanded. It was oddly comforting to hear something other than merriness or defeat in the man's voice. If nothing else, Yuy had revived him. "You'll just be killing yourself, too!"

"Fool," Yuy muttered, blatantly ignoring Maxwell's words. I could hear movement over the speakers and knew without a doubt that he was unbuckling himself from his harness.

"Heero, you can't!" No wit was Maxwell who was panicking, Maxwell who's breath was loud over the speakers. I heard a shift in his movements, as well. "If you open your hatch, I swear I'll self-destruct!" he shouted suddenly.

My breath gushed out on a steely hiss. I heard Yuy freeze, fearing the truth of Maxwell's statement. I had no doubt he actually _would_ hit that damnable button if Yuy made the wrong move. Suddenly a strange suspicion stole over me. My mind flashed back over the months, trying to remember all the instances in which Maxwell and Yuy were together. Suddenly all of Maxwell's jokes directed at Yuy, all of his teasing, took on a different tint.

Maxwell loved Yuy.

I was so blown away by this revelation I almost missed the continuation of the argument. "Duo," Yuy snarled, voice low, "damn you. I will not let you die. Do you hear me? I won't lose you!"

And, I realized with an even greater amount of surprise, Heero Yuy may very well love Duo Maxwell in return. My head spun with the sudden insight.

"Well I'm not losing you!" Maxwell shouted, not backing down in the slightest. "It's over for me! I knew that as soon as I took this mission-"

I lurched forward in my seat, not thinking whatsoever. "You stupid fuck!" My hands wrapped around their grips on instinct, reacting to my fury without my giving them any conscious directions. "We never wanted you to die!"

That's right – that's right! A test to prove his worth?! What utter bullshit! We'd always known he had strength! We'd never questioned his abilities!

But Maxwell laughed at my words. "What?" the man choked out. "What's this bullshit? You thought I was a worthless piece of-"

"We didn't think you could be a soldier!" I argued, leaning forward as if I could reach his throat by doing so. "We thought you were too much a civilian – we didn't want you getting involved in these fights! All of us... we..." I was breathing heavily. "Damn you, Maxwell, we thought you couldn't be a soldier, but..." But not once had we thought he wasn't a worthy fighter!

Maxwell's laughter was even louder than before, more cruel. "I _am_ the war!" he yelled, his voice almost crazy. "My entire life is battle! From the first moment I can remember – I've always been fighting. Always!"

I stopped at the sound of Maxwell's voice. It was bitter, bitter and full of knowledge I couldn't conceive of existing inside the Maxwell I envisioned – the laughing, ever-cheerful, attention-seeking jokester.

_A mask._

My head hung in shame. A mask. Just as Yuy lived within his own secret world – just as I myself hid away – Maxwell had perfected a mask of his own. Perhaps the best out of all of ours, one good enough to not only fool the enemy forces, but also his very own allies. Those who were supposed to understand him the most. Gods. I'd been so blind.

"Duo," Quatre murmured, "the real you – that's the calculating mind and overwhelming sorrow... isn't it?"

"Guess it doesn't matter any more for you to know," he said negligently, as if it didn't matter at all anymore. And why would it? He would be dead soon. I had to cover my mouth again.

"Damn you," Yuy hissed. It was odd to hear a man usually so stoic cursing almost as much as Maxwell.

I felt nauseous. Of course it was now, standing helplessly on the sidelines in the middle of space as we counted down Maxwell's last breaths, that I realized just how wrong, just how pathetic, I'd been. I would never have the chance to make this up to Maxwell. He would die, a sign of my own weaknesses, both inside and out. I felt the tears in my eyes again.

"Duo, that..." Winner seemed unable to speak exactly what 'that' was, his own voice faltering. It seemed we were all grieving. Even Winner, the one with the least amount of soldier in him – no, no, that probably wasn't right, either – the one with the most kindness, was unable to say his thoughts. If he couldn't, what were the chances that I, a man so very unaccustomed to admitting emotions, would be able to say all the thoughts clouding my mind?

"Duo, who are you, really?" Barton spoke, the first he'd said in a very long time. His voice was calm.

"Oh, Trowa!" Maxwell seemed pleased to hear Barton's question. "I knew you knew. I could feel it. How much?"

I heard it then. A noise that shouldn't have existed at that point of time. It came from Yuy's comm. link. "Heero!" Maxwell screamed. He'd heard it, too.

Yuy had opened his hatch.

Over Maxwell's comm. link, I could hear movement. "Are you really going to kill me?" Heero called out through his suit's speakers, already knowing the answer.

"Damn you, Yuy!" Duo screamed. His voice was half-crazed. It seemed almost as if Duo had lost his mind.

"Duo!" Winner screamed suddenly. It took me only a short moment longer to see what Winner had, and I felt my heart skid to a stop when I did.

Deathscythe's hatch began to slide open.

"No!" I screamed. I knew, remembered specifically, that Maxwell did not have a suit on. There was only one end to this.

Maxwell was forcing his own death.

"Just give it up," Maxwell advised – most possibly the last words we would ever hear from him. My chest seemed about to explode, the utter panic was so great. "Some things can't be changed."

No. Not this way. Not like this!

"Duo!" Yuy screamed. In that split second Heero Yuy was not a soldier. Not a fighter. In that one instant, he was merely a man faced with the possibility of seeing the one he loved die. There was nothing more to him than that. My gut wrenched – how very well I understood that man just now. Without helping him, I'd stood back and watched him make the same mistakes I had made. And now, because of that – because of my indifference – he would face the same soul-tearing heartache.

And Maxwell started laughing again.

Mocking Yuy's pain? "What...?" My hands convulsed around their grips. What the hell was Maxwell doing?

"Rich," Maxwell chortled, "just rich! Yuy!" He shouted out as loud as he could. I could hear the deafening sound of decompression all around him; it must have been hard for him to breathe. "Hey, man, did you know I love you?"

His laughter only got louder as I saw the hatch open up completely.

_No...!_ "Maxwell!" I screamed. All around me, the others shouted, as well; I heard Winner yell out in denial, heard Trowa make a sharp, unintelligible cry. Then there was Yuy, shouting his lungs hoarse, calling the one name I knew he would hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life.

"DUO!"

Yuy launched himself forward with his squirt gun, a wholly useless effort. The vacuum would already be boiling Maxwell alive. I closed my eyes; I couldn't see him like that. I'd seen plenty of dead bodies, but I didn't need to see one that would blur into the face of my own nightmares.

"I'm not losing him!" Yuy screamed, and I heard a noise from within Maxwell's cockpit. Like a fool, I opened my eyes again, only to see Maxwell's body being hurled like a javelin across empty space. Yuy had thrown Maxwell's body?

And I saw Maxwell's form slam straight into Wing's cockpit, followed immediately by Yuy's form, flying as quickly as possible back to his suit. And then the cockpit closed.

"Barton, take Deathscythe back in," Yuy ordered.

My breath came in small gasps. Was it possible? Could Maxwell still be alive? What the hell kind of insane maneuver had that been?!

"No problem," Barton responded.

I myself was still trying to wrap my head around whether or not Maxwell would stay alive. Well, the sooner we made it back to Earth, the sooner we would know.

I watched as Barton latched his suit to Maxwell's. "He'll get bruises, probably even broken bones during our landing," I informed everyone. As if they didn't know.

"He'll live," Yuy growled. I imagined him cradling Maxwell protectively in his arms, hands firm and steely but most likely gentle, holding his most precious burden. I wanted to tell him life didn't work out so miraculously, but I knew he would deflect the words immediately. As if his will alone could make Maxwell live.

But it did.

* * *

I had made such a huge mistake.

I sat in the hospital, watching the nurses carefully avoid me, used to a soldier's moods. My glaring heatedly at a wall was also probably a clue.

Maxwell. He'd been sent out on a suicide mission to prove his worth to us. Meaning, of course, that it was _our_ fault. His injuries were _our_ fault.

No, I had to fix even that assumption. Winner was constantly kind, Barton aware. No. I myself had to shoulder the burden. Yuy, as well, but certainly I had to take a good share of the blame.

I had seen Maxwell as nothing more than a jokester – a court jester, perhaps. The one in the story who told puns, sang songs and gave a general sense of goodwill to everyone. I had never seen him as a true warrior, despite his efforts on the battlefield. Despite all of his skill.

I had been so wrong.

Maxwell was a fighter, just the same as me. He had been through the same rigorous, hellish training. And he had succeeded. If he hadn't, he never would have been given Deathscythe. In being near him – or, I should say, his mask – I had made a base assumption that had almost taken his life. I had no excuse.

From now on, I needed to change. I needed to be a better man, or else I would once again drag down those fighting beside me. I needed to be stronger.

I stood, determined, and went over to check on Maxwell to tell him of my decision.

And two minutes later, I was in the bathroom nursing a nosebleed. Nevermind... I would tell him later.


End file.
